These are just my opinions. I cannot promise that I will be perfect, but I can promise that I will seek to understand and illuminate whatever moves that the Giants make (my obsession and compulsion). I will share my love of baseball and my passion for the Giants. And I will try to teach, best that I can. Often, I tackle the prevailing mood among Giants fans and see if that is a correct stance, good or bad.

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Your 2013 Giants: Draft Results

I'm so glad about the new CBA. Prospects sign so much faster now that everything is slotted. Now we just have to wait for Boras to find the next loophole and exploit it...

At his link is all the players the Giants drafted in this season's amateur draft. Also, Shankbone followed the draft at his most excellent blog, You Gotta Like These Kids. This one talks about the Giants and how they avoid consensus thinking. Look around his June 2013 posts and there will be a bunch of great discussions about the draft and his analysis of a variety of rounds. DrB also covered the draft, day one here, day two here and day three here. There is also the BA list with signings and other info, at their Giants site.ogc thoughts

I usually follow up the draft with all the talk I see out there on the prospects. Just been too busy, sorry. So far the Giants have signed 9 of their Top 10 picks, with only RHP Nick Vander Tuig unsigned, and he has a good excuse: his team is still in the college World Series. And 21 of the 40 have seen signed so far, 14 of their top 20, 19 of their top 30.

They are currently $154,100 under budget, with Vander Tuig left to sign. He was ranked by BA about where Ragira was selected, Vander Tuig was ranked 145, Ragira 142, Ragira was selected 132 and still got a bump on his bonus, so that whole amount could end up going to Vander Tuig if he pushes hard for an equivalent rank bonus. He is slotted for $212,300 and 132 was slotted for $378,000.

There is some excitement over possibly signing Jonah Arenado, our 16th round pick, as he is the younger brother of starting 3B Nolan Arenado, a top prospect of the Colorado Rockies. According to an MLB interview with his older brother, "I talked to him and he's excited. He thought he was going to go a little bit earlier, but he's really happy. ... He's put in the hard work ... got bigger and stronger, got quicker and got a lot better with the bat. He's talking to some schools, but I think he really wants to go play some ball, so if the deal is right, he's going to go out there and play some ball." The Giants listed him as 3B when drafting him.

The Giants can go as high as $100,000 plus they can go above their overall bonus pool by 5%, or nearly $236,000, and still only incur a monetary fine (any larger and they start losing picks) so even if Vander Tuig sucks up all the "savings" in rounds 1-10, the Giants still has a lot of spending room with picks 11-40.

This draft was different in that there were a lot of high school prospects drafted (14), though 9 of them were picks 30-40, but also the top two picks in the draft. Those picks are also different in that they were position players, it has been a generation ago since the Giants did that, draft two high school position players 1-2. It was also odd since "only" 5 pitchers were drafted in the first 10 picks, 9 of first 20, but then 17 of first 30 (or 8 of 10 in rounds 21-30), and 21 of 40, though with so many high schoolers drafted in rounds 30-40, probably many of them won't be signed. It will probably depend on how much they sign Vander Tuig to.

Most of the experts viewed much of the Giants draft to be vast overdrafts. BA rated Arroyo102 while the Giants used the 25th pick to select him, Ryder Jones 197 with 64th, Chase Johnson 183 with 101st pick, even Ragira was a little early, 142 with 132nd pick. Dan Slania and Nick Vander Tuig were both selected after their ranking, also D.J. Snelten, Johneshwy Fargas, Pat Young, and Jonah Arenado (ranked 312, drafted with 492nd pick, a whole 6 rounds later).

Arroyo vows to stick at SS, having done all sorts of training techniques (and I think he mentioned yoga fo flexibility), but most view him to have just one plus hit, his hitting, though it seems he will probably stick at SS. Arroyo was Team USA's starting SS, as well as MVP in a tournament. Jones' father is a college baseball coach. So both can be viewed as having a lot of baseball intangibles that the Giants seem to like (Panik also was viewed in that way, Noonan as well).
When your team's pick is so far back, it is hard for me to get too wound up negatively regarding the pick. It is not like the experts like BA get that right all the time either, let alone the baseball experts in the GM suites across the MLB. Plus, the odds of finding a good starting player this far back is really against any team, the talent is not readily discernable, almost random who makes it and who don't.

In Stratton's case, we could celebrate that he fell to us, he was slotted to be drafted earlier. In Brown's and Panik's cases, they were considered overdrafts, but Brown excelled to have one of the best OPS and batting line in his league's available 8 year history, even better than Evan Longoria. And Panik is much like Arroyo, a leader with nothing much to speak of other than hit ability.

On top of that, I've liked the Giants picks, post-draft, under Barr, so sometimes you just have to trust the process and in Barr We Trust. It is also much harder to point out plus or minuses with high school players, Royce Clayton was a homerun hitting SS when we drafted him, but he didn't hit for any power once he became a pro. So I'm open to whatever the Giants brain trust has decided and will evaluate further as the prospects turn pro and play ball.

8 comments:

VanderTuig has a great excuse for not signing. A tad busy being the winning pitcher in the clinching game of the championship. He looked good too. He's a pitch to contact guy but he has a nice change and a nice curve. It'll be harder to do in pro ball but he made a good hitting lineup look pretty silly. Plus he's helped out by that stadium. UCLA plays Giant baseball - carve out runs, play good defense and pitch!

Can the Giants develop some more hitters? Going to be fun tracking Gustavo/Javier/Arroyo/Jones. Even if they are swings and misses, they are also honest efforts to compete to the max. That's all I really think you can ask for. The IFA guys were nice surprises, at a point where I was a little down on the Giants spending efforts. The Arroyo/Jones picks are regarded as overdrafts (with some thinking the Giants should have received concessions for said overdraft). But for me, they symbolize willingness to go spend, develop as they compete. That is a far cry from the 90s-early 00s.

Just think, the last HS hitter drafted in the first is Tony Torcato. Tidrow wanted local boy CC Sabathia (who was most likely a better hitter than Torcato as well)... That 1998 draft cracks me up because eventually the Gints snagged a ton of those guys to help win in 2010: Burrell, Rowand, Huff, Torres, Lopez! 5 of 25.

I'm excited about the youth. Great 3 headed pitching monster with Crick/Blackburn/Mejia. Got the college arms Stratton/Agosta/Kickham as well. You have Brown/Panik/Susac and now you have your HS hitting guys as well.

Looking forward to seeing what the efforts were in the IFA this year. I"m thinking its pitching because they were light in that department in the draft.

Hopefully BCraw can help recruit Vander Tuig, or be the example that entices him to sign. Of course, helps that Giants known for developing pitchers, even ones who don't have blazing fastballs.

Yeah, isn't that a tired meme? The Giants current has four starters who they developed themselves, Posey, Sandoval, Belt, Crawford, who have been hitting well this season or better. They don't get credit for selecting Posey by a certain breed of Naysayers, even though many of them would have selected Smoak instead (ironic, eh?).

And Belt, it is not like other late round picks making good, he wasn't good until the Giants changed his whole approach around. If that is not a sign of a good org knowing hitting, I don't know what is.

Also, people seem to think Posey was always considered this good. He wasn't. When he was drafted, he was considered a good hitter ... for a catcher. It was his all around skills, particularly his expected Gold Glove skills, that made him valuable. Nobody at the time of the draft would consider him a viable cleanup hitter, except maybe Giants fans used to see Molina hit there.

Ironically, Wieters was considered the big homerun hitter who could hit for average too, they seem have basically traded with each other their expected MLB profile, as Wieters is an OK hitter with power with Gold Glove defense (though Posey was profiled as hitter with OK power with gold glove ability).

Of course, Cousins apparently killed Posey's ability to be a gold glove catcher, as he's been barely average defensively by the advanced fielding stats since he returned from that horrendous injury that Cousins stupidly laid on him.

The Posey we drafted but without gold glove defense would not have been that valuable, and probably would not have be very valuable at any other up the middle position, but the Posey we got today can move to any spot on the field and be a plus hitter there for us.

I understand not giving the Giants the entire credit there, as Posey did have skills, but when you have a number of examples - Posey, Belt, and also Crawford, who was and is viewed as a defense first SS - then you have to start at least thinking, "maybe the team knows something about hitting that they can teach". Also, they recognized that Torres was making a big change to the way that he was hitting, else why take him on that season? They have good hitting scouts as well as pitching scouts.

I'm excited about the youth too. That is a solid 6 of pitching prospects, we might be struggling this season, but these guys will start coming up in the coming years and solidify the rotation again.

And good point we got college guys for now and high school guys for later. Seems like they have a plan, no? And they appear to be executing on it.

Given Barr's ambitions to be GM, I'm worried he will get poached, particularly by LAD after this season, but he has put the farm system into really good shape (that's probably why he's already in a scout's Hall of Fame) and for that I thank him profusely. It is hard enough to have a nice stream of potentials rising up the farm (see Royals, Pirates, Orioles, even Rays, pre-new GM) when you are losing a ton and picking up very good prospects high in the draft, but to do it while you are winning, as Barr has done, has really given the Giants a huge boost, I can't imagine where we would be the past few seasons without Belt or Crawford contributing, and his draft pieces were key in picking up Pence.

Yeah, in the IFA, the Giants have not really gone large there with pitching, so I agree that they probably will share the wealth this year and pick up a bunch of pitching, since they probably have a full cupboard of position players in the minors, heard any good rumors yet tying any player to the Giants?

I would think Vander Tuig should sign for close to slot. The Giants should then be able to combine the $!50 K that they are under slot with $230 K that they can go over without losing a draft pick plus the $100 K slot money to offer Arenado about $480 K. I would guess that gets it done.

If the Giants get that done, then it's a pretty sweet draft in my book. I would love it if they could somehow get the 6'9" pitcher from Canada signed too.

I would add that in addition to the "big six" pitching prospects you and Shankbone mention, the Giants have a very nice second tier of pitching prospects(well, maybe third tier. Kyle Crick is in a tier by himself right now). There is Kickham and now Surkamp at AAA level. Farther down, there is Kendry Flores who is having a nice season and Keury Mella in Rookie Ball. Don't forget Ty Blach in San Jose either.

Kyle Crick by himself for sure.Kickham/Surkamp as advanced grind through arms.Heston/Fitzgerald as long shot fill-ins.Stratton/Agosta as advanced college arms (who might be at low-A but doing well there)Mejia/Escobar as solid young lefties.Flores/Mella as solid young righties.Ty Blach as a reminder not to criticize the Giants.And Blackburn as the sleeper/hype/sleeper.

That's 13 arms! I'd add my favorite scrapper Snodgrass. And wait to see what happens on the IFA front to go along with the new draftees. Oh, and young Chris Marlowe with a good heater and the best curve in the system.

Yeah, the Giants are doing pretty good drafting in the back of the draft with the other playoff teams, I agree, as the list put together could be our future rotation in a few years, we are loaded, not quite for bear, but darn well considering.

I, Me, Mine

Wow, this was easy and amazingly free. I am a big Giants fan and I hope to use my experience in business (MBA) and analytics (nearly 25 years) to bring up interesting facts to other Giants fans so that we may better understand the team's chances for success (or not) and hopefully share their insights with me. Please read my "OGC's Business Plan" link to better understand what my philosophy is for building a successful MLB team.
I want to teach and share my love of baseball and, in particular, my love for the San Francisco Giants. I will believe to my dying days that Bobby Bonds should be in Baseball’s Hall of Fame for being one of the few to bring the combination of power and speed to the game.
Why a blog? I love technology and society and just wanted to participate in this trend to see what it felt like. Plus I have a lot of questions I would like answered about the Giants and since I don't see anyone else tackling them, I've taken it upon myself to do it. Not that I'm that special, but just that I'm willing to put in the time to investigate them.